Art, Tea, and Ginger Cookies.

Yesterday I was lucky to help Shiuwen ( www.floatingleaves.com ) at an art opening of her friend and regular customer Bev Byrnes (bevbyrnes.com). The opening  was at Bev's studio located in one of the buildings at G. Magnuson Park.

The building where the studio is located is a former military base office building, so the overall layout of it is very simple and linear. Almost each room was occupied by a particular artist's studio, so the "opening" was actually a massive event: three stores of art studios have opened their doors for visitors.

Shiuwen was invited to do a tea tasting/service for the visitors of the studio while I just tagged along to help carry stuff and take some pictures. 

Bev has a great tea corner at her studio with a hand-made tea tray setup, so the whole "tea station" looked very professional. 

I was not counting the number of visitors, (besides that their number was different to each studio as some people limited their visit to a particular artist's space) but positive that for those four hours we were there there were over 150 visitors at Bev's space. 

Although, only 35 of them had tea - shame on you Seattle art patrons, there were like ten different teas to try!

The overall experience at the opening was surprisingly soothing and relaxing. The crowd was, for the most, nice and friendly, the weather was great, and the studio was very cozy.

There was a short rain around 14:00 with a gorgeous rainbow afterwards.

My favorite picture. As Shiuwen commented it: "Two of my favorite things - men and food!" (On picture she is holding a magazine about local restaurants).